Valorant: Rising frustrations with Vandal’s first-shot accuracy is pushing players to use Phantom more

The Vandal vs. Phantom debate in Valorant doesn’t seem to be nearing its end, and more heated discussions have evolved in the community as frustrations continue to grow with Vandal’s first-shot RNG.

To those unaware, Valorant has a fair amount of first shot deviation in its weapons. For a game that likes to call itself a tactical, low-TTK, first-person shooter, Valorant ironically harbours a mechanic that will make you miss your shot even if you're pointing the gun directly at the head with a weapon like the Vandal.

Now, the Vandal and the Phantom, much like CS: GO’s M4 and AK, are the two main weapons in Valorant which are highly sought-after. However, they come with some amount of bullet spread and deviation on the first shot, making them highly unreliable at times, especially when you are aiming for the head and going for one-tap kills.

And though the Phantom makes up for the RNG with its rate of fire and lower recoil rate, the Vandal is not as lucky, and it is falling from grace, even if it is by far one of the most satisfying weapons to play.

Players are preferring the Phantom more than the Vandal in Valorant

BlueSpark showing Vandal's first-shot inaccuracy at long distances (Image Credits: BlueSpark)

In a Reddit post by BlueSpark_2000, we see just how annoying Vandal’s first shot RNG can be during heated situations.

In the clip, the Redditor shows how even after locking on to the stationary enemy Sova's head, tapping twice with a Vandal did not get him an instant headshot kill as it’s supposed to in Valorant.

The user wrote:

"I was playing an unrated match yesterday using the vandal and this happened, as shown in the clip I started to tap-fire the enemy Sova in the head while we were BOTH not moving and he was looking in a different direction while using the operator and the bullets just kept going to the sides of his head. Honestly, I don't know why first bullet inaccuracy with the vandal is so bad or why it's even a thing in the game in the first place.”

The Vandal is supposed to offer an alternate type of gameplay than the Phantom, which rewards players for their accuracy and headshot skills. Now putting first-shot deviation and RNG, coupled with the slower rate of fire, has pretty much made the weapon a relatively bad investment.

In the Valorant Ignition Series Tournaments, we have also seen that many of the professional players in both Europe and NA are shying away from it and preferring the Phantom.

100 Thieves’ Hiko is probably the only one who uses the Vandal optimally, and we even see streamers like Shroud preferring the Phantom.

The Valorant devs may not be buffing Vandal’s first-shot accuracy

A YouTube channel called Click Heads have done a deeper dive on Valorant’s Vandal issue and came up with some unique arguments as to why the Vandal might not be seeing a buff anytime soon.

By buffing the Vandal’s first-shot accuracy and removing the RNG, you make it an oppressive counter to the Operator. And sure, with the lack of CC in the game, the Operators are overpowered to begin with but buffing the Vandal to match that will just give the automatic weapon the agency to act as a sniper.

Click Heads suggests that another reason why the Vandal may not receive a buff is that it will completely make the Guardian useless.

First-shot deviation numbers for the Guardian, Vandal and Phantom (Image Credits: Click Heds)

In the chart above, we see that the Guardian has the lowest amount of deviation out of all the weapons in the game. And for a one-tap playstyle, Riot wants players to go more for this gun than the Vandal.

However, the problem arises during the later stages of a Valorant game, especially during do-or-die situations where players will generally opt more for an automatic than a semi-automatic. In such cases, we see that even with next to 0 first-shot deviation, players will never really opt for the Guardian.

Picking the Vandal provides a much higher risk, especially if you go for a one-tap playstyle, which pros like TL’s ScreaM and Hiko generally go for.

Hence, Valorant’s balance team has their work cut out for them when it comes to balancing the Vandal because the weapon is currently compromising the competitive integrity of the game.